The present invention is directed to a method for providing a wagering game wherein the player has a fixed liability for a maximum loss.
Sports wagering typically involves a player selecting a sports proposition, e.g. which team will win a contest, and making a desired wager on the contest. This is a single proposition wager. It is also known to provide what are known as parlay wagers based upon a plurality of propositions. For example, a player could bet a football parlay involving ten games. The player would make a required wager and would select, for each of the ten football games, a winner. If all (ten out of ten) or substantially all (e.g. eight out of ten or better) of the player""s picks are winners, the player wins and is paid based upon the wager. If fewer than a predetermined number of picks are winners the player losses the wager.
It is also known that a player can select, for example, ten contests and make a separate wager on each, for example $100. In most cases, for each contest predetermined payoffs are provided based upon established odds if the player has selected the winner, e.g. 9 to 5. Each contest is either won or lost and the player is paid or loses his wager independent of the other contests.
A drawback to this type of wagering is that the player may lose all of his wagers and therefore is less likely to make large wagers for each contest. That is, if the player had a predetermined maximum amount that the player could lose which is less than all of the amount wagered, the player may be induced to wager greater amounts. For example, if a player would normally wager $10 on each of ten games, the player has at risk $100 if the player fails to pick any winners. However, if the player was assured that the player would only lose a maximum of half the wagers, the player may be induced to wager 25$ per game knowing that the player could only lose a maximum of $125 for the ten games even should the player fail to pick any winners in a ten game selection.
There is, therefore, a need in the art to provide a contest or gaming method wherein the player has only at risk a predetermined amount which is less than the total amount wagered. There is a need for such a method in sports proposition wagering and table games such as Roulette and the like where substantially even money payouts are provided.
There is, therefore, set forth according to the present invention a method which provides for a player to wager on a set of N outcomes, such as sporting events like football games, each having a winning and a losing outcome, and which limits the player""s exposure to loss.
The method according to the present invention is for playing a wagering game on a predetermined set of N event outcomes (e.g. N football games), each event having an outcome of a win or a loss. The method includes the player wagering an amount X+Y for each event outcome of the set N, where Y designates the profit or vigourish for the casino. Thus to play, the player makes a total wager of N(X+Y). The outcomes are thereafter determined. For the number of winning outcomes W obtained of the set the player is paid an award of W((X+(X+!)) and for each losing outcome the players wager for that outcome is lost subject to the minimum loss aspect of the method. Where for any set the player has less than or equal to one-half losing outcomes, i.e where N is ten games and the player has 5 or less winning outcomes, the player is paid one half of his original wager (N(X+Y)/2). Thus the player""s maximum loss is one half of their original wager.